"Thanks to Sustainable Path's pivotal, early funding for the Northwest BioCarbon Initiative, we were able to gain traction with key innovators, generate media attention, and create the intellectual framework for biocarbon to play a critical role in addressing our climate crisis"-Greg Small, Climate Solutions Executive Director

Impact Circle-8 Awards Four Grants – June 2017

Focus: Innovations in Sustainability

Emerald Cities – Seattle: Expand Green Up Funds for All

Sustainable Path’s grant will support their project to craft a carbon reduction fund that can be used to invest in renewable energy and to incentivize projects to convert from using fossil fuels to clean electricity.

Emerald Cities will review the efforts made to date within Seattle City Light,as well as a City of Seattle effort to create a Carbon Reduction Incentive Fund (CRIF), to fund renewable energy and renewable energy credits. Scanning the national landscape of carbon reduction efforts, Emerald Cities will assemble a set of best practices that could be considered as local solutions. Assembling a group of stakeholders, Emerald Cities will use lessons learned, best practices from around the country, and our current legal, regulatory, and political realities to craft a carbon reduction fund that can be used to invest in renewable energy and to incentivize projects to convert from using fossil fuels to clean electricity. This program will include methods to raise money, and use it effectively to reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions through projects in Seattle. It will be scalable to other jurisdictions and demonstrate that it can work statewide as well. It can provide a framework for the use and distribution of potential future revenue from a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax. Emerald Cities will look for community involvement in the promotion and management of the fund as a model for environmental democracy.

Re-Sources For A Sustainable Community

Sustainable Path’s grant will fund the groundwork for RE Sources to design, implement, and host microplastic sampling and data collection training workshops for a new corps of citizen scientists.

The smallest things can sometimes create the biggest problems. Microplastics in Puget Sound is one such notable example. These tiny pieces of plastic—less than 5 mm in diameter—are wreaking havoc on our nearshore habitats, marine invertebrates, and many species of fish, mammals and birds. While scientists have researched and documented the impacts of microplastics on the world’s oceans, little is understood or known about what these tiny particles are doing to filter feeders, salmon and many other species in Puget Sound. At the macro level we know that everything from phytoplankton biomass to loss of habitat function is at risk but the extent of the damage and the long-term consequences remain largely unknown.

Sustainable Path’s grant will fund the groundwork for RE Sources to design, implement, and host microplastic sampling and data collection training workshops for a new corps of citizen scientists. Re-Sources is a partner of the Institute of Environmental Toxicology at Western Washington University (WWU) in conducting a risk assessment of microplastics in Puget Sound. Collecting and analyzing data at several sites will help both inform new policies to mitigate microplastic damage and identify hotspots.

Sightline Institute: The Thin Green Line – Land use law reform to prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure

Sustainable Path’s grant will support Sightline’s work for land use reform.

Sightline’s work on preventing fossil fuels has been ongoing since 2011. Sightline was one of the first to ring the alarm on the hazards of coal transportation, as well as Big Oil’s plans to drastically increase oil-by-rail shipments to the coast. This work will continue until the global threat from fossil fuels has been contained, and every last export proposal has been shut down. In the near-term, Sightline anticipates local land use law will become the most effective tool for this job. Big energy companies need permission from local governments all up and down the Puget Sound—cities that have the potential to be the last line of defense that keeps these dirty and dangerous fossil fuels in the ground. The current legislative session is our next chance to hold the thin green line strong.

Sustainable Path’s grant will support Sightline’s work for land use reform. For this work, Sightline will act as the research and communications arm of this movement. Working in close collaboration with local partners, Sightline will support the introduction of new legislation that will amend Tacoma’s local land use law to forestall new dirty energy development. A powerful coalition is emerging in Tacoma– one that includes fence-line communities and residents, the nearby Puyallup Tribe, affected workers like the Longshoremen, and local environmental organizations – to protect Tacoma and the waters of Commencement Bay from the depredations of the fossil fuel industry. If successful in Tacoma, Sightline will help to replicate the ban in other Puget Sound cities in coming months and years.

Wild Fish Conservancy: San Juan Sustainable Fishery Model

Sustainable Path’s grant will support WFC’s work assisting local fishermen in their transition from gillnets to reef nets.

While it’s true Pacific salmon are critically important to the economy of the Northwest, to talk only of their economic importance ignores a greater truth. Salmon are the backbone of what we in the Northwest hold dear: our culture, our environment, and our communities.

Today, in waters once supporting abundant populations, four native salmonid species in the sound are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act: Chinook salmon, summer chum salmon, steelhead trout, and bull trout. Their decline cannot be attributed to any one cause, but rather an accumulation of detrimental human activities including habitat degradation, hatchery impacts, dams, and overharvest fromnon-selective commercial fishing practices. Sustainable Path’s grant will support Wild Fish Conservancy (WCF) works to mitigate the negative effects of the latter by expanding the use of sustainable, selective commercial fishing practices in Puget Sound.

Since 2015, WFC has worked in partnership with Lummi Island Wild, a collaboratively owned reef net fishery based on Lummi Island, to advocate for the adoption of reef nets as stock-selective gears. This collaboration has resulted in the expansion and promotion of a sustainable model for regional commercial fisheries. Using fishing methods pioneered centuries ago by the Lummi and Saanich Nations, the non-native members of Lummi Island Wild are re-purposing a traditional salmon harvesting method known as reef netting. Reef nets are capable of releasing ESA-listed salmon back into the wild with the lowest mortality and bycatch rates of any fishing gear. WFC has helped the Lummi Island fishers expand and succeed in harmony with the surrounding ecosystem and tribal communities.

Sustainable Path’s grant will support WFC’s work assisting local fishermen in their transition from gillnets to reef nets. WFC is working with engineers to refine the efficiency of reef nets as stock-selective harvest tools, securing sustainable market certification, and improve the viability of their co-op model.

Impotence: millions of the world men are affected

From their data, American scientists found that about 18 million men between 40 and 70 years of age suffer from erectile dysfunction in the US. Urologists from Los Angeles, USA have transferred this calculation to the local conditions: According to this, four to six million of all men are affected. In order to estimate the frequency of potency problems in men, scientists had long been dependent on a study from the 1940s. Recent, scientifically acknowledged studies have shown that increasing age and certain chronic diseases increase the risk of becoming impotent. Read more on these pages...